Median Strategies has shut down its polling operation and withdrawn previously published surveys after saying the results were part of a “social experiment” examining how purported political polling could circulate without independent verification.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A polling firm that released surveys showing substantial Democrat advantages in several prominent races has ceased operations and acknowledged that its results should not be regarded as legitimate polling data.
Median Strategies announced Monday that it had “concluded its polling project” and withdrew all of its previously released surveys.
The firm said the exercise had been a “social experiment” intended to examine how purported polling results could move through political and media circles without being independently verified.
Median Strategies explicitly cautioned that its surveys “should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data.”
The disclosure followed scrutiny of a widely circulated survey concerning the Los Angeles mayoral race.
Median Strategies had released polling showing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass holding a 12-point lead over City Council member Nithya Raman ahead of their November runoff.
Bass initially promoted the result on social media.
After the survey was exposed as bogus, her campaign called for an investigation into whether the episode represented an attempt to influence an election.
Median Strategies had also published polling in Wisconsin showing gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong leading her race by approximately 20 percentage points.
Hong ultimately lost.
That result had already generated questions about the firm’s accuracy before Median Strategies acknowledged that its polling operation was not producing genuine survey results.
The controversy differs from ordinary polling errors because Median Strategies has now said its surveys themselves were part of an experiment rather than legitimate attempts to measure public opinion.
Election polling has long involved uncertainty, and established firms have sometimes produced surveys that differed substantially from final election results.
That problem has been particularly visible during elections involving President Donald Trump.
One of the most notable examples occurred immediately before the 2024 presidential election in Iowa.
A closely watched Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll conducted by veteran pollster J. Ann Selzer showed then-Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of Trump by three percentage points, 47% to 44%.
The election produced a sharply different result.
Trump won Iowa by approximately 13 percentage points, creating a roughly 16-point difference between the poll’s projected margin and the eventual outcome.
Polling organizations had also underestimated Trump’s performance in important states during his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
In 2024, Trump performed better than polling averages in all seven major battleground states.
Those misses involved surveys presented as genuine attempts to measure the electorate, however, making them fundamentally different from Median Strategies’ acknowledgment that its own published results were part of a “social experiment.”
The firm said its purpose was to test how information presented as polling could be repeated and amplified through the political information environment without adequate scrutiny of its origin or methodology.
The episode has raised separate questions for political campaigns, media organizations and voters about determining whether polling organizations and their surveys are authentic before treating their findings as reliable indicators of an election.
It also adds another layer to longstanding uncertainty surrounding political polling.
Even legitimate surveys can miss the eventual outcome because of methodology, sampling, turnout assumptions and other factors. The Median Strategies case presents a more basic problem: whether the numbers being circulated were genuine polling results at all.
With the company now closed and all of its surveys withdrawn, Median Strategies has instructed that none of its earlier polling should continue to be used as legitimate data.
The controversy leaves political organizations and news outlets confronting two distinct challenges as the November elections approach: evaluating the accuracy of legitimate surveys while also verifying that purported polling is authentic before amplifying its conclusions.
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